When You Got a Good Thing
by Miss Higher Power
Summary: They day they decide on Beth is the day that will start it all. Puck just doesn't realize it yet.


The day they decide on Beth is the day that will start it all. Puck just doesn't realize it yet.

Puck pulls the truck into the driveway after school; Quinn is in the passenger seat yapping on and on about "the genius of Lady Gaga" (anybody who hangs themselves on stage is fucking psycho) in between bites of her McFlurry. She's worse than Rachel sometimes.

Puck tunes her out while they get out of the truck, and he grabs their bags from the bed of his truck (he's not whipped). He catches words like "visionary" and "activist" as they make their way to the house and continue through the front door.

His sister, Sarah, is in the family room watching some Disney channel tween make a fool of herself. That isn't unusual. It is weird that his mom is sitting at the dining room table crying.

"Mrs. Puckerman? Are you okay?" Quinn asks quietly, moving to the table.

His mom looks up quickly and starts shoving papers back into her filing box. He knows that box. It's her bill box.

"Oh, honey, I'm fine. I was just...dealing with onions for dinner." He knows when his mom is bullshitting, and she's totally bullshitting. Everyone in his house fucking hates onions.

He manages to take a peek at one of the papers before his mom can get the lid on the box and put it away. It's a bill from the doctor, and that's a lot of fucking zeroes.

He doesn't need the lecture that Quinn gives him (20 fucking minutes) to know that he needs to man up. He can talk a lot of crap about being a man, but unless he's gonna do something about it, it's just that. Talk. Gotta walk the walk if he's gonna talk the talk.

* * *

After he makes sure that Quinn can get a ride with Mercedes, Puck goes to school early the next morning to look at the job board in student services. So far he can only see lame ass jobs like library page and babysitter (which doesn't start soon enough, and while he's totally awesome with munchkins, he's pretty sure he's not going to want to be spending his summer with kids, what with Beth and all).

He's looking at a flyer about a job delivering groceries to seniors when he sees a brown blob around his shoulder.

"Good morning, Noah." Puck looks over at Rachel and grunts a response.

"Your manners are atrocious, Noah." Rachel states.

He so doesn't need this this morning. He just wants to find a job so he can help his mom out. She's been way cool about the whole thing with Quinn and Beth (even though he knows Quinn drives her absolutely batnuts crazy), and he really doesn't dig the fact that she's stressing about the bills.

Rachel is still staring at him, obviously waiting for some kind of answer that meets her approval.

"Good morning, Rachel." He drawls sarcastically, without even looking at her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Now who's got bad manners?" Puck turns his head to look at her and raises his eyebrow.

"I apologize. That was terribly rude. I was simply wondering why you're looking at the job board. I was under the impression that you did _quite_ well with your pool cleaning business."

"Yeah, well, pool's don't need cleaning until summer and I fucking need cash now." Rachel winces at his use of the word "fucking" but he keeps on going. "Doctor's bills ain't cheap, and these jobs won't pay shit."

Rachel's brow furrows for a moment before she smiles at him.

"I'm sure something appropriate will present itself shortly." She tells him before turning to leave. "I'll see you in glee this afternoon."

* * *

Kurt's waiting for him at the beginning of glee the next day.

"You're decent with cars, aren't you?"

"Yeah. You having problems?"

"Hardly." Kurt says in that voice that lets you know that you're boring him, so let's move it along. "Dad needs someone to help him at the garage, and we thought of you."

Puck notices Rachel hovering in the background. She's not looking at them on purpose.

"I thought _you_ worked for your dad."

"I did, but Rachel has some sort of weekend class she wants to take." Puck notices that he says Rachel's name with a shitload of hostility. He spent a whole year dumping the dude into a dumpster and he gets more respect than that. Dude has some serious hate on for Rachel. "So she needed to find someone to fill in for her at her dad's graphic design business. Honestly, I didn't pay attention to the details. All I know is that I'll have a job on my resume that RISD will approve of, but I can only take it if I find someone to help _my _dad out. So I repeat...You're decent with cars, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm good with cars."

"Fabu." Kurt actually claps his hands. Dude couldn't be more gay if he tried. "You start Saturday at 9:00. Now, do you have a colour preference for your coveralls. I think you'd look great in a navy blue."

Totally gay.

* * *

Quinn and Mercedes decide to go to the mall after glee, so Puck hangs around to help Rachel with chairs and music.

"Thanks." He says to her. He's not going to pretend that he doesn't know what she did.

"You're welcome." She's not going to pretend she doesn't know what he's talking about.

"How'd you swing it?" He asks as he stacks the last of the chairs.

"I remembered the time that you fixed my car while we were seeing each other. After that, it was just a matter of putting my phenomenal actings skills to good use."

She might flap her trap all the goddamn time, but he thinks that this girl might be the nicest girl he's ever met. Even in the middle of all the crap she's going through with Jesse, and her mom, and Finn being the world's biggest ass hat, she's still thinking about other people.

They finish cleaning up and exit the building together in silence.

"Well, I gotta bounce. It's my night to cook dinner, and those chicken fingers aren't gonna cook 'emselves."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Noah."

"'Night, Rach."


End file.
